Tag Archives: Alexander Payne

Until this year, the only big time film industry awards show I had ever been to was the Independent Spirit Awards and it’s been almost 10 years since the last time – and who can forget Elvis Costello’s “surprise” opening of the show with (“What’s So Funny ’bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?”). I had never been invited to any of the guild awards shows and to be honest, I was pretty curious about them. We all know about the Golden Globes and how fun they seem to be (how many drunk winners can you remember over the years?) but what about the SAG awards? PGA? WGA? Well, this year I finally got invited to one and to my surprise, it was a lot of fun.

It seems like rather than wait for the home video release (which I am sure will have longer versions and other goodies), some studios are releasing so-called “featurettes” (I maintain that this is not a word, but I digress) as part of their ad campaigns. Fox Searchlight has released 2 (or three, depending on which list you look at) of my top 10 films of the year, including #1, The Descendants, a likely multiple Oscar nominee.

Alexander Payne’s film grabbed me from the open and never let go. I consider it a modern American masterpiece of cinema and am happy to debate you on it, too!

At any rate, here are two of their behind-the-scenes clips, with the first featuring a look at the life on set and the second a dialog between George Clooney and Alexander Payne about the balance between comedy and drama.

Ok, so they aren’t the deepest insights into life on a set or the directing process and ok, in the second one Clooney’s wrong about how many Oscars The More the Merrier won (it won 1 for Charles Coburn, best supporting actor and was nominated for 5 others) but they go further than a 30 second commercial does and they’re more interesting that the trailers. That said, please don’t watch them until you’ve seen the film, as spoiler’s abound!